Genealogy Chat

I have always been wary of gambling, seeing it as very addictive. However it has struck me several times as I put in another £6 into scotspeople, with sometimes little reward and at others quite a lot of reward that they are many similarities. I am having to be more strict with myself. Anyone else seen a connection?

oh jeannie - I know what you mean - I pay my £6 and get on a roll and then the next thing I know - I have used up the credits. I have been REALLY fairly good and rationed myself to one lot of credits a month. I have to admit though I hve been very lucky - I have only picked the wrong entry about 4 or 5 times out of over 200 viewings. She

You are lucky She!! , my experience is more like you Terri. I have the 'just once more' syndrome at the moment. When I started this lark, I used to get so excited when I found someone and run around the house yelling. Now that I am further away, into GX5 and they seem less personal I go 'Ah right! and instantly search for the next in line. Which is a bit of a shame.

Hi there, Why do you spend so much money. Why not go to your local family history library and spend two hours or so searching for free. This is much more entertaining, If you cannot read anything, you can always ask the person sitting next to you to have a look. I have met many interesting people this way. Mary

I wonder if there is a "patch" for this!!!

Mary, if you are so near, you may not have realised how lucky you are to be able to do, what you are suggesting. many of us are nowhere near a (british) family history centre ! So we "gamble" a bit and hope to back the winner !

Yes, I totally agree - it would be lovely to just go and take a look at the books for ourselves, but with this distance I think we are fortunate that 1837 is online and we can look - even if it does cost and yes, it it a bit like gambling isn't it? Barbara

it gets more serious with the Southport lottery, backing your hunches and shaky deductions at 7 quid a time -- I've got two bets riding on two hunches at present, and when the certs come I'm going to be so high if I'm right

Hi all, don't any of you use Freebmd, that is the first place I look, if any quarters are missing I can then check 1837(.)com. Freebmd dates 1837-1907, to check if all quarters are there I just put in a surname and no first name, then the qtrs & years, ok so you don't have to do that for Smith etc as there will be to many. But it does save a few £'s, with the marriages you get a better chance of finding the partners name as well. Irene

Hi Mary, I am very lucky with my fathers family who through total coincidence turned out to live about 10 miles away and they have a great local records office. Not only that but most of it is on LDS. However my mothers family come from Scotland and thats why I use scotlandspeople so much. To everyone else, really enjoyed your response as well as Mary's. To think that I have taken the moral high ground when my mother spends money on lottery tickets!!

I agree-I`ve spent a bit on scotlandspeople too-but there seems to be more info available in ENGLAND for people to search for relatives.I love printing off the certificates. What hobby is free? Rosalyn

Terri, Don't forget to save your pages :) Maybe someone has svaed the page that you are looking for. Paul

I'm not mean, but does everybody find (like me) that the 1901 is the worst. You want to see a census and can't wait until you want 6 so end up looking at people you almost KNOW won't be yours or offering to use them for someone else. It's the 48 hour deadline that's the problem.Chris

Its the certificates I can't resist. It certainly is a gamble at £7 a time but I sent for 8 a few months ago and they were all correct!! Now there's no stopping me. I'd never dream of throwing £7 away on a horse!! Anne

And I thought I was the only one who just bought £5 worth of searches, as I didn't have much to search for...several times...

Just a little tip (which you probably all know) about the 1901 census. If you buy a voucher from your local library instead of paying online then you can use it whenever you like - no 48 hr deadline! I buy one occassionally when I'm getting a book out. At first the librarians were all confused and had to go and get the Manager who confirmed that they did sell the vouchers but now they know me and apparently more and more people are buying the vouchers now so they are not so phased by it. Also is it only me who spends £25.00 on 1837? If I spend just £5.00 it seems to go in a matter of days but you get a lot more look ups and longer to spend them in if you lay out £25.00. It is expensive but with 4 young children it is the only way I can do look ups (no way I'm lugging all them out to wreak havoc whilst I try to look things up). Lorraine

Check out family search.They've now got Scottish parish registers on there.

Ah - I'm glad I read this. I was beginning to worry, especially after I spent hours in a friends attic on scotlandspeople where we just spent £6 after £6 until the wee small hours with great results. I do have a system using family search and comparing results of searches on scotlands people, but still I have 37 pages of previous searches, 14 pages of viewed images and 12 pages of my Timeline (people who are actually mine....). And I live in Edinburgh so conceivably could go to register house and look it all up for £10/half day. Which I did recently when on a day off from work but proved just as addictive as internet searching and now can't wait to go again. And I am a member of the Scottish Genealogy Society and have spent many an hour there, and in the Scottish Library. It's not just spending of money but time - anyone else still hopefully plugging the same information into Google every day to see if the info you want has, as if by magic, appeared? I think I need an intervention........

Have any of you people searching in Scotland tried Scotts origins its IGI births and marriages similar to Family search (but for Scotland )and it's free. I agree it is a lottery but my husband and son go to the golf range and spend around £10 per week and I'm sure I'd rather be doing this than hitting a little white ball with a stick. Each to thier own!